Comey is 'not anxious about any tapes'

A president with profound respect for the Constitution, not to mention good sense (political and otherwise), wouldn't dare do what Trump did.

"No I don't, I know that some are obsessed with the word Russia - the president is not under investigation, I'm around the president, I'm not under investigation", Conway said. "That's not a threat".

"Let me repeat that the president has been told by the FBI director that he is not under FBI investigation, that is right in the president's letter", Conway said. Even an amateur history student would realize that this is precisely how Nixon went down: a member of the White House staff revealed the presence of a taping system, at which point special prosecutor Archibald Cox asked for a subpoena; Nixon refused to turn over the tapes, and then ordered the Saturday Night Massacre when Cox kept demanding them and the Attorney General refused to fire him.

On May 11, Trump asserted that Comey had assured him during the dinner and twice over the phone that he was not the subject of an FBI investigation.

A person close to Comey confirmed the New York Times report to the Associated Press that Trump asked for the pledge of loyalty at a dinner the two attended in January. Trump said there was no "collusion between me and my campaign and the Russians", and that "the Russians did not affect the vote".

"I would find that very inconsistent with what I know of Jim Comey", Clapper explained. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, told MSNBC on Friday.

"Mr. Comey declined to make that pledge".

Mr Trump has said Mr Comey told him three times he was not a target of the FBI inquiry, fuelling accusations the president was interfering in the investigation.

Democratic strategist David Axelrod says that President Trump should be "looking in the mirror" to tackle any communication issues.

The president tweeted: "Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!"

The president's opponents immediately found Nixonian parallels, making comparisons to the White House tapes that fuelled the Watergate scandal. The FBI director's firing has raised concern in some corners about the impartiality of that investigation moving forward and has renewed calls for an independent investigation. More importantly, it shows that whatever reverence he holds, it is for himself.

"That is not accurate", McCabe said. If the Richard Nixon Library was able to troll Trump after he fired Comey by noting that the 37th president himself had never fired an Federal Bureau of Investigation director, in this case, it seems like there's nothing that they could possibly do to avoid to comparisons.

That explains why Trump decided himself to fire Comey because of pique over "this Russian Federation thing", as he told NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt on Thursday.

He added, "Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future "press briefings" and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???" "Regardless of recommendation I was going to fire Comey". Others blow away long-established norms of presidential behavior, and experts say they approach limits of legally permissible conduct. Tim Kaine, D-VA. "He said 'you are not under investigation'". Bob Casey, D-PA.

Vice-President Mike Pence told reporters on Capitol Hill that the dismissial was "the President's decision to accept the recommendation of the Deputy Attorney-General and the Attorney-General".

"So that when we had witnesses that we needed to talk to, we made sure that we weren't stepping on top of anything that might be an active investigation", Sen.

Lawmakers have asked for a briefing about Comey's firing from Rosenstein. Krishnamoorthi serves on the House's oversight committee as well. "I think it's a good idea".